Gender Communication
' Gender Communication' is defined as when sex or gender influences how you communicate with other people and how others communicate with you. Sex and gender It is communication about and between men and women. When sex or gender becomes an overt factor in your communication, when you become concious of your own or another person's sex or gender, then gender communication is operating. Gender Communication is a unique, fascinating subset of the larger topic known as communication. Why study gender communication? Gender Communication is... *'Provacative': Gender communication is provacative 'because we're all interested in how we're percieved, how we communicate with others, and how others respond to us. Of special interest is communication with members of the other sex, mainly because we can't experience the other sex first hand; we can't "walk in each other's shoes". We're also interested in the potiential rewards that may result from effective gender communication. *'Popularized: Gender Communication is a hot topic in our culture, evidenced by the many viral videos, books, TV shows, websites, films, and songs related to the topic. *'Pervasive': Gender Communication is pervasive, meaning that interaction women and men occurs 24/7. The sheer number of contacts we have with members of the other sex heightens interest in the effects of sex and gender on communication. *'Problematic:' Saying that gender communication is problematic doesn't mean that all gender communication centers around problems, but that it is complicated. Communication itself is complex; its not a simple process that can be accomplished just because we're human beings who learned language at some early age or because we've been talking all our lives. When you add sex and gender to the mix, you expand the complexity because now there is more than one way of looking at talking about something. *'Unpredictable:' Gender Communication is unpredictable in that societal norms, rules and roles have changed dramatically and continue to change. Gender theories *'Social Learning Theory- '''children learn gender related behaviors through parents, peers, observation and judgements. Children often mimic what is seen. *'Cognitive Development Theory-''' childrens minds mature when it comes to gender rules and self identity without external reinforcement. *'Gender Identity Development Theory-' the case of the theory is you get identity through the mother child relationship. *'Gender Schema Theory-' cultural influences with gender and is used to understand how other cultures identify themselves. Media theories CMC-''' computer mediated communication. It excludes face to face communication. *we see over 3000 ads a day *watching over one hour of primetime, one third of it is taken up by ads *ads are 30sec to a minute long '''A list of Theories include: *'Hyperdermic Needle Theory: '''media affects the mass audiences by directly consuming their mediated message. *'Cultivation Theory: 'media blur the lines between reality and fantasy *'Agenda Setting Research: 'media creates pictures in our minds and as a result, it affects the way we think *'Uses and Gratification Theory: '''Consumers are motivated to use various types of media resulting in the consumer feeling a gain, reward or gratisfaction. Boys vs. girls The differences of sex and gender begin before birth through gender revealing parties and baby colors, with boys being blue and girls pink. Boys and girls toys also vary in many ways. Boys toys usually have more options, they are competitive, problem solving, and more expensive. Girls toys usually are babies, barbies, and kitchen/housekeeping stuff. They start to get the girl to learn how looks are and learn to nurture. Males are preferred over females across the country. Having a son includes stereotypes of him being big, strong and tall. While having a daughter includes stereotypes of them being cheerful, delicate and soft. Some parents are started to use a term '''Gender Neutral '''which means to not assign colors and staying away from stereotypes. References Ivy, Diana K. ''GenderSpeak Fifth Edition Personal Effectiveness In Gender Communication. ''Boston: Pearson Education Inc., 2012.Print http://www.eligiblemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/man-looking-at-woman.jpg